I sat in a crowd full of dressed up graduates from Seattle U, scrolled through Twitter, and saw blood swept across rainbows on my phone's screen. On one of the best days of my life, the events in Orlando transformed my morning into depressive chaos. This wasn't the first time my heart had been ripped from my chest. I owe that first moment of pain to a boy named Michael Brown; but he didn't owe it to me. He didn't owe anything to anyone. Neither did the fifty odd other people who were gunned down in their "safe space." But here we all are, learning from marginalized communities, sharing photos on Facebook, and waiting for anything to change.
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| Vice |
One of my best friends learned that Elie Wiesel passed away recently. She lit a Shabbat candle and whispered a word of mourning. When I learned that 50 others died in Orlando, I couldn't surface enough candles for every flame put out by a useless weapon. So I lit one, set a rose and crystal next to it, and lightly cried on the floor of my apartment in the dark.
A day later, I opened Facebook again to see a number of people from Small Town, USA infuriated about their right to own a firearm possibly being amended. On one hand, my community is suffering from a loss against the isms. On the other, my community insists that they can protect me with the same weapons that threaten my existence. In that instant, I realized that my two communities were at odds, like they'd always been, but in a much more violent way.
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| gmanews.tv |
Growing up, I listened to the word "fag" dropped like it really was synonymous with "stupid," "evil," or "predatory." I can handle that--I did. I choked my sobs down in my throat whenever a macho farmer knocked down a theater kid for being "different" (not even confirmed gay, only stereotyped gay). I hushed political opinions to keep myself from the same end. And after awhile, I became convinced that this was how life would be for me--hushed truths, outspoken lies, and rampant hatred paired with violence.
Fuck that. I am not sorry to call out the people who are causing direct harm to me and my community, whether or not I love you. I can love you and think you're an idiot. But the difference between you and me is that I will leave you alone to be stupid. You seem to think it's still okay to threaten my life and the lives of others if it means you get to keep what you've paid for.
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| Live From Lockdown |
I'm not okay, in every sense of the phrase. I need help standing still on the moving earth. But I will not trust the hands I trusted growing up. I will not put my hands in the palms of those still holding guns. I'm tired of protecting the identities of fuckheads from Deer Park who still think it's okay to perpetuate racism, homophobia, and sexism. I'm done apologizing to my friends for your hateful comments on my posts. Y'all have access to a lot more than other folks but still play it off like "you never learned it." College doesn't teach you how to be a decent human being, you need to teach yourself that.
If you can't put down a weapon to join your fellow Americans in mourning the death of kin, you can't sit with us.
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